siddur

As some of you know, it was Yom Kippur recently, the holiest day of the year in Judaism. It’s a day you spend sitting in synagogue at one of the five continuous services reflecting on your actions over the past year and trying to ignore the desire to go eat something, or go do anything that isn’t spending eight straight hours recalling all the times you were just a dick to someone. Yom Kippur is a time when you stop thinking about what people have done to you to justify your behaviour, or who was right or wrong, but what you, and you alone, did.

Religion gets a bad rep, but I wanted to post what I always found to be the most powerful (and guilt-inducing) prayer recited in my synagogue on Yom Kippur, one that I tend to think of throughout the year when I’ve messed up. By the time you reach Yom Kippur, you’re supposed to have already gone and tried to make up with people, and the day is just the forgiving bit. But I hope that some of you might find Al Cheyt, as it’s known, a useful reminder to consider the impact that you may have had on the lives of others, and and a pointed prompt to go make amends. [click to continue…]